The Return of the Dancing Fool

Today the Arsenal resume footballing hostilities with our first home game for three weeks against Alan Pardew’s Newcastle United in the 5.30pm kick off.

Mr Pardew is remembered less than fondly by Gooners for his jig of celebration in Wenger’s face during his spell as West Ham manager.

Our opponent’s were on the rough end of yet another referee inspired victory for the denizens of Old Toilet with our former skipper VanJudas (or should I say “Lazarus” in view of his near death experience in the previous game?) scoring the equaliser that paved the way for the usual Fergie time winner we have witnessed all too often at the home of the Glazer’s loan security vehicle.

It is worth noting that referee on this occasion was Mike Dean, who saw fit to send our manager to the stands, full of rabid, uncouth ManUre fans, for the heinous crime of kicking a water bottle yet failed to mention “Sir” Alex’s repeated hostile verbal abuse of him and the match officials over a disputed off side goal in his match report.

Surprising ?

Not if you assume Dean didn’t want to be demoted to a League Two game for this weekend’s fixtures, as happened to Chris Foy when he allowed the Spuds to win at Old Toilet in October. That was clearly a because Foy hadn’t read the latest edition of the referees handbook which states: “play must continue until Manchester United equalise.”

Anyway, I digress.

Having scored three goals away from home and still losing it could be said that it would have some sort of psychological impact on most teams but I don’t believe we should believe that will necessarily apply to the Toon.

That being said United have only won one of their last four league games, and that was a win against Harry Redknapp’s bottom placed QPR(wouldn’t it be funny if he took another team down out of the Premiership?), so their current form is less than impressive.

Injuries to their midfield, exacerbated by another unpunished, reckless tackle by a home player on an away player at Old Toilet mean that our opponents will be fielding a much depleted midfield.

This is because Perch will have to go into defence as Williamson, one of their regular centre halves, was yellow carded against ManUre and is suspended for today. Other absentees include Ben Arfa, Cabaye and Gutierrez.

Up front the Toon have a choice of two Ameobis (Shola or Sammy) and as well their main danger man Demba Ba, the subject of much continued, and annoying, transfer speculation.

While we tend to lose games in clutches there is the possibility that Newcastle will use the injustice of the loss to ManUre as a motivation to increase their efforts as they are a team that have goals aplenty in them and for that reason our defence has to be on tip-top form; particularly cutting out any lazy cross field passes in our own third.

Therefore I would pick our current first choice centre back pairing of the BFG and Vermaelen, with fullbacks Gibbs and Sagna, although our right back’s form has been a tad patchy and I would not be too surprised to see Jenko get the nod.

For the middle three I would go for our form players, namely Arteta, Wilshire and Santi although I wish we could rest one or two of those as I fear they may hit the “red zone” soon. As Rosicky is available today perhaps he could start or at least be subbed on to give Santi/Mikel a rest.

Up top I would start the Ox with the Pod and Giroud, with Theo coming on later as an impact sub, although this may not help too much in respect of Theo’s long running contract negotiations.

Injury wise we are without Fabianski and Santos as well as the ever absent/present(in the injury room) Diaby which leads to today’s “Fun fact”, namely that it is exactly three MONTHS to the day since our fragile number two last played for us, after it was reported here by Arse.com that Diaby would be out for three WEEKS.

In keeping with this year’s theme as established by Big Randy today’s explorer comes from Gateshead appropriately enough and goes by the suitably genteel name of Harold Crichton-Browne.

His pen and ink caricature, which hangs in the National Portrait Gallery, is shown below in which he sports a lavish handlebar ‘stache that befits a man who in later life served as a Lieutenant Colonel in Africa.

He accompanied the more well known James Thompson on an expedition to the Atlas mountains of Morocco in the late 1880’s – anything other than a win against the Toon today and we’ll face an uphill struggle (to keep in the running for a top four finish) as difficult as that faced by Joseph and Harry in Morocco.

UTA !

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This entry was posted on Saturday, December 29th, 2012 at 9:46 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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Nicely written Chary. Agree that Pardew is a nob. They are a big powerful side so I think the BFG will be busy. Only worry is that its a 5.30 game, I may be wrong but I dont think we have done well in them lately.

An early goal for us today should see us eradicate the time wasting disease that Tim Krul seems to have developed over the years. I also hope that Demba Ba’s game is affected by the rumours of a potential move and he plays within himself. Here’s hoping that Ba coughs up ‘shanks’ rather than a ‘lamb classic’..

I would also like to see Rosicky start on the left with Poldi through the middle. Surely a guy of his calibre should get a chance centrally. But thats just me, there is no way he could be as bad as the swerve in that role.

Good sum up Chary. I would prefer Poldi, Giroud and Theo as the front three. Theo will keep their left full back pinned and cut that line of supply. If in a position by the hour mark, move Theo centrally and bring the OX for Giroud.That will keep their back four firmly stationed in their own half for the fear of a counter attack. Also, we need to get some time from Rosciky either for Santi or Arteta keeping Tuesday’s trip in mind.
Anyway, hope we can put up a brilliant show tonight. Also, wish all you gooners a fabulous 2013.

Morning all, it’s always fun to point out “Sir” Alex for the cowardly bully that he is GiEand of course we should expect to get inconsistent refereeing from yet another northern ref; I believe about 17 out of the 20ish refs are northern. I wonder if anyone can spot which book I get the title of todays PM from ?

Still nervous about today.We have won three on the bounce but only scored from open play in one of them.
Personally I would like to see a fit Kos come in as I am still not sure about BFG if the geordies play with pace.
I still have nightmares of that 4-4 draw.

Most probably AW will for the third time start with the same formation and let’s hope results beforehand go our way.
Ba :)

I love geezers like Pardew,on the dance floor they make me look like John Travolta, increasing my pulling chances by a good 30%.If you then combine that with his riveting personality and chat up lines like “yes, the local council refused my planning application for a rear extension” then my increase is near on 80% hahahaha.

It will be a tough game today but if we can turn there defence we should get the points. 3-1 Arsenal.

Hi
TA for the Arteta pic,Chas.
Nice afternoon read enjoyed it with my smoke and coffee 😇.
At least we will know what we need to do on this game as we are last team to play that may be an advantage.
2-0 the sheep says to Arsenal. ⚽⚽

GiE,
Isnt that the biggest load of bullshit the FA and refs have ever spurted out to the fans. Nasri gets red carded for retalliation. Basically all he did was eyeball Bassong. Van Judas raises his hands on a player, grabbing for the throat and in heat of the moment even takes a swipe at the ref. Verdict= Yellow.

It is pathetic, and slowly and surely with these sort of decisions, the world will look upon the EPL the same way they used to with the serie A in Italy.

Rocky it’s not the individual errors that worry me but the fact that BFG and Szczesny combined have been organising set piece defending much better recently…with the less experienced (and possibly ignored by others) Szczesny being most vocal organiser I worry about us from set pieces. Especially as Pardew will have drilled his team since Boxing Day.

Before the goal I was thinking its a workmanlike performance but at least we are winning.

Then yet another individual error cost us. That tackle by Sagna was needless and hopeless at the same time. Some may think I’m on his case but I’ll say again Mr Consistent at what precisely?

Am I the only one who thinks there are a couple of camps emerging within the squad? I think you’ve got Szczesny, Gibbs, Jack,Ox, Giroud, Ramsey and Koscielny in one, then Pod, TV5, Sagna, Theo in another, with only Arteta, BFG and Cazorla mingling between the two.

I know which camp I’d get rid of it it’s there.

Theo you scored a great goal, to be worth that position you have to do more, left foot needs a lot of work for someone demanding World Class Salary…as does passing.

Cliques/groups…apparently it was there before last season, Arteta, BFG convinced RvP to do something about it, and they did, seems like its come back. I don’t see them working for each other like they did last season.

it’s a poor habit GiE, obertan did it in the first half and i was left shaking my head. i see no point in it and makes them look like spoilt brats. i’m sure it’s something Arsene could point out when the team breaks down the game together as opposed to sulking on the pitch

Now that you mention it I do get the feeling that at certain periods of the first half non of the players seem to be working for their teammates. Early glimpses of the second half seems encouraging though. Good point about the possibility of there being cliques in the team though.

Unreal scoreline which I honestly do not think reflects the game, but who cares, we scored SEVEN.

For me, Sagna had a very poor game and was caught wrong side of his man far too many times, missed his tackles and his passing was pretty awful to match. Gibbs can be blamed for their third, but for me Sagna should have stopped the cross!

Walcott is starting to look like the complete CF.. I’ll be so pissed if once again we lose another player who’s just about reaching his prime, why does this amazing timing of player contracts always happen to us! Just listen to the emirates crowd chant his name, sign the damn thing theo.

While our defending and our lack of communication as well as players not pressuring the opposition enough particularly in the first half leaves much to be desired, going forward we have been absolutely spectacular (Some credit must go to the ox too and not just theo, i must say i am very impressed with him over the past few games. Similiarly Podolski had a really good game too.) Must have been a wonderful game for the neutrals.

Adrian, we have offered Theo a contract he hasn’t signed….we have offered Jack, Rambo, Ox,Jenkinson, Gibbs contracts they all signed.

It’s in one persons hands and always has been.

The question is if its £100k a week it’s doable, although he has injury track record as chequered as RvPs was. If its £150k a week and we give it what does Cazorla look for when his agent starts talking to Gazidis next, or Jack for that matter?

Well what a roller coaster of a game that was, but we got the 3 points and added +4 to our goal differencce. If anyone cares the answer to the question about the book my PM’s title was taken from it was “The return of the dancing master” by Henning Mankell, a spin off from his Wallander series.

You can almost feel the cold reach out from the pages Mr Rock. Did you catch any of the Wallander series on TV ? I can recommend the Krister Henrikkson version series 1. I’d leave the Brannagh efforts well alone. :)

Rocky – it’s true there were the usual moans and groans. I sit next to a couple of sisters in their seventies and they get quite angry. Each time we conceded the one that sits next to me was very disapproving :lol:

But what was interesting was that there were such great attempts on goal in the second half that were unlucky misses that instead of groans they were met with WOAH – as in fantastic effort which is an entirely different sound. D’you know what I mean?

I think the key to Toons goals was 2 centre forwards against two centre backs.

On the second and third goals TV points for Gibbs to stick with Ba, which seems ludicrous. Neither he or Koscielny covered themselves in glory on those goals, Kos tried to do the BFG thing of blocking the cross on the first.

I just don’t get why a centre back gives a full back the responsibility of picking up a tall centre forward.

Ha, at 4-3 I asked the question if Arsene ever did a ten minute clean sheet exercise in training.
We got the answer, keep a clean sheet by scoring three more goals!
Absolute classic and I couldn’t give Ant’s ticket away. What a crying shame.

My train terminated at Leicester due to a derailment on Thursday night and I had to get the bus replacement.
I didn’t mind one bit. :)

“I enjoy playing in whatever position but it was just telling the manager to give me the opportunities to play up front, I’m not saying I’m always going to play up front but it’s just showing what I can do but hopefully I’ve opened a few eyes and it’s just a different option. Hopefully, I can start to take it a bit more often now.”

Pretty sure it was LB who said the decision to play him through the middle worked in two ways, one being to prove that it wasn’t about the position.

Problem is I think it will cost a lot more than £100k a week to keep him. I think we are talking easy £200k a week demands in current market. No transfer fee (which could equate to £100k a week over a 5 year contract) plus a fair wage (which if City is £170k a week based on Balotelli). So worst case scenario is Cityor Chelsea offer him £270k per week, how do we pay that, without every other first teamer approaching Gazidis?

To put the above in context £200k per week more would be £10.4m per year, so 4 other players asking for a £50k a week pay rise as a result would equate to £20.8m and the new sponsorship money is spent.